Month: October 2017

So we are now living life at Six Little Acres. There are still many things to unpack and I’m slowly but surely making my way through the boxes.

Sometimes it’s like Christmas! I’m seeing things we “thought” were going to be stored for only three months, but glory be, it took a stinkin’ year and two months to finally get out of those storage units.

We’ve had only a few casualties; some china, a couple of items the movers thought they deserved (small stuff, God has that so we don’t have to pursue it), and Ninja Man’s shoulder. Yep, two slight tears in his rotator cuff. I asked him what happened. This is how it went:

Me: What in the world? Are you ok? Does it hurt? How did it happen?

Ninja Man: I don’t know.

Me: (We have been married nearly 41 years so I kinda know which question he chose to answer.) You don’t know how it happened? Were you with your shoulder all day? Did you loan it out? Are you secretly trying to do some sort of one-armed extreme sport?

Ninja Man: I don’t know.

Me: (see above part about 41 years)

Well, after several weeks of his wincing in pain, we went to the doc and it is determined that he will live. He got two shots, one where the sun don’t shine and another straight to the shoulder. I held his hand and gently reminded him that I delivered BOTH of his babies naturally. It’s the best I could do under the circumstances and it made the doctor laugh so it was sooo worth it.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

Spoiler alert: Having no money made me a list maker long ago when our kids were little, our mortgage was huge, and we were depressed when we were broke and irresponsible when we weren’t.

My lists went like the one I’m pasting in here. Stuff we can do that takes NO money and stuff we can do when we have a little extra. If any of you are IRS agents, I promise not to get anything until y’all are happy and friends with us again.

This will hang in the message area of the kitchen. What’s a message area? A blank wall for now but I’m going to make a sweet little something to hold lists such as this one.

By the way, the “no cost” list includes several things we already have like paint and stuff. It also includes elbow grease, as momma used to say, which means to get off one’s lazy fanny and work.

Things to do at Six Little Acres

No Cost

Outside:

Clean under carports

Clean up yard

Pick up branches

Clear spiderwebs

Touch up and paint porches

Put rug down on front porch

Fill holes in yard

Inside:

Master bath:

Add lights

Fix drawers

Touch up paint

Hang my makeup mirror

Adjust faucets

Studio bath:

Décor

Fix TP holder

Adjust faucets

Living room:

Repair and repaint post

Touch up paint

Décor

Make scripture for wall (Silhouette / vinyl)

Fix barn door

Kitchen:

Make rolling island

Make vinyl sign for chalkboard

Need funds:

Outside:

$$ Paint carport roofs

$$ Buy or repair weed eater

$$ Install stepping stones or walkway to cars

$$ Make sitting area on hill

$$ Make firepit

$$ Get tree guy to see diseased trees

$$$ Remote for gate

$$$ Hire bobcat guy

$$$$ Build new porch on side of house

$$$$ Install fencing

$$$$ Install gutters

Inside:

$ Cordless phone with extra base

$$$ Rods and curtains in living room

$$$ Kitchen pantry

I hope this encourages someone to see parts of your own picture, not the whole overwhelming enchilada. Yesterday I unpacked our bedroom and organized the closet and dresser. It made all the difference in the world and I have to say I woke up happy for the first time in a long time. Cost was zero and momma would be proud.

Y’all be blessed, and please keep praying for the Six Little Acres folks. Baby Wren and her mommy (my daughter) are heading to Philadelphia soon for further treatment and we need that neuroblastoma to be gone.

Oh yes it is. And we, (the Ninja Man and moi) are exhausted beyond imagination.

Here’s what:

We rented a U-Haul and – through U-Haul- we hired two movers. Y’all remember how I’ve mentioned how blessed we are? Well, those two movers turned into three, and the four hours we paid for were finished in three!

That’s a big deal since Ninja Man had worked a full day and needed to go to bed. It’s just a piece of gravel in a mountain of major challenges we have faced.

None of this has been easy, y’all. None of it.

Let’s recap since February 2016. The 15th, to be exact was when Baby Wren was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in her neck. That is the day I will never forget. Baby cancer will do that to you. Looking back, it’s absolutely a devastating event that forever altered our lives. But it is also absolutely the time we have seen more blessings than we have ever witnessed.

With this news, there was not even a doubt that I would help our daughter and her husband with Wren and big sis Phoebe.

We moved away from our beautiful Savannah home, renting it out because it’s too soon in the mortgage to sell. We knew the expenses we would incur would be substantial. We own an RV and we moved into it.

We spent a full year renovating Six Little Acres with horrid contractors. I was in charge of the whole project and had to navigate it from a distance from either Savannah or the children’s hospital. All this while living in the RV near Savannah and me driving to Atlanta every 21 days for 13 rounds of baby chemo.

Our plan was to accomplish this place with no debt. We didn’t make that goal. We had to go into debt and now we will pay that as we go.

We finally finished this build/remodel in late May. I moved in and lived as sparsely as I’ve ever lived. Paper plates. No dresser for my clothes (I’ve successfully used cardboard boxes). Very few chairs, a borrowed pot and pan, no toaster, no washer or dryer and no TV. Everything we owned was in storage and Ninja would bring as much as he could every time he came. Im 58 years old. Let me just say that I am completely over hauling laundry to a laundromat either near SLA or at the campground. Over it, y’all.

We have been married nearly 41 years. Besides the washer and dryer, we have a good bit of stuff even though I pared it down a lot before we moved. Check this out: knowing how I needed furnishings and necessities, Ninja Man tirelessly loaded his truck after working 10 hour days (he had help only once) and drove the 3 1/2 hours from Savannah to our new home. He did this nearly every Friday for over four months.

He’s 64. There were bookcases and heavy boxes.

It’s a lot, y’all.

Fast forward to tonight. I can’t describe how tired we are. I’m too tired to cry. Too tired to put on my PJs. So I won’t do either.

Ninja Man and I left the RV (I was there to get some things done in Savannah) about 9:30 this morning. Instead of sleeping, I’d spent several hours being anxious about the SneakMobile being towed. Oh, I didn’t want to. I didn’t even expect to. It’s just a byproduct of being the sweet and loving control freak that I am.

Anyway, he drove the 26′ truck with The SneakMobile in tow. I drove his huge pickup truck.

Being the control freak that I am, I was surprised that once we were on the road, I really wasn’t worried at all. The SneakMobile is obedient, and followed along as if it we do this all the time.

Here we are challenging another U-Hauler to a duel.

Don’t worry, I never looked at my phone to take this picture. Seriously. It’s just a rare talent that I discovered shortly after the invention of picture-taking-phones.

Four hours later (only 30 extra minutes from our usual time) we were turning in at Six Little Acres.

Can I just tell y’all how big this is? Huge. Huge, y’all.

And that 26′ truck was filled, as momma would say, “to the gills.”

Having spent so much already, I put a call out on Facebook for help. Even though the offer was for pizza-compensation, we had folks eager to come at this crucial time.

Crucial because:

Both Ninja and I have issues with our right shoulders. Mine due to a hard fall on concrete, his a mystery injury. I asked him if he was with his shoulder at the time it was injured, he assured me he was. We have no clue what happened but he will get an MRI next week.

And can I just say that I saw my X-ray and I’m downright skinny up under all this fluff. Skinny bones. Yep. That’s me.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the “during”. I will start on boxes tomorrow, right after I sleep until somebody makes me drag my drivin-all-over-the-dang-place-paper-plate-using-laundromat-hanging-out-whiney butt out of the bed.

And not a moment sooner.

Thanks for stopping by, and thank you all who have been praying for Baby Wren. Keep it up please, she has a ways to go yet.